Sex in 2009: Five Predictions From HBO's Sexpert

A friend once described his sexual appetites this way: "A hungry junkyard dog is more fun than a poodle." He's going to be one happy puppy after he reads my five predictions for sex in 2009:

1. You're going to have a lot more of it.
The recession that hit your pocket will tickle your crotch. Call it Recession Sex. If you're coupled, you're going to spend more time at home and at some point that TV's gotta be turned off. The nesting impulse will increase your resting pulse. That's the good news. The bad? As discretionary income goes down, indiscretions go up. Oops. If you're single, you'll have the time but not the money to fritter away at bars. You won't wait for the last-call yard sale so you'll probably lower the bar to increase your odds.

2. You're going to see a lot more of it.
Larry Flynt once said, "There are two kinds of people who oppose porn. Those who don't know what they're talking about and those who don't know what they're missing." Well, ain't nobody missing it anymore. It's everywhere. The mainstreaming of porn in art, fashion, and media is turning adult videos into a sort of Zen koan: No matter where you go, there it is.

3. You're going to be paying a lot less for it.
Nobody's going to put call girls in a higher tax bracket this year. With a tanking economy, streetwalkers, pole dancers and gold diggers alike are going to have to give it up for less. So are the online dating sites, as they compete with free sites like Plentyoffish.com, Okcupid.com, and DateHookUp.com. It's like they've been working a corner for years and now some hussy's going to do the job for free. Oh, my.

You might blow a lot of things up for porn but it won't be your budget. You don't have to buy it anymore. Hell, you don't even have to rent it. You just have to point your browser to free sites like Youporn.com and xtube.com, where amateurs and pros upload unstoppable watchables. Offline piracy, illegal downloads and free video sharing sites are going to make dinosaurs out of adult video studios. If they don't figure out how to compete with "FREE" soon, their last movie is gonna be about their profits--Gone With The Girdle.

4. You're going to be doing it with things that are smarter than you.
Safe sex is not a padded headboard, but it is programmable. Take the SaSi vibrator. It's a sort of iTunes dildo--it remembers your favorite vibrations so you can play them later. Make it go left, right and a little to the side and it'll 'record' the vibrational combinations, releasing you from, well, all that hard work.

5. You're going to see videos of strangers before you do it with them.
Online dating sites have already introduced relevant searching methods, instant messaging, and mobile phone access to pictures and profiles. What's next? Videos. They'll get rid of flakes that use fake pictures, serving as a kind of Venus Lie Trap. Watch AOL's beta test of love.com, the first to bundle Instant Messenger, audio and video into a traditional dating site.

My bottom line prediction for sex in 2009: The No Pants Dance craze will sweep the nation.

Author, columnist and TV personality Mike Alvear writes about sex, love and vodka.

Comments

[Lisa Earle McLeod - Huffpost Blogger]

When HBO's sexpert tells me I'm going to be doing it more and seeing it more, I don't know whether to jump for joy or keel over from exhaustion.

As if I don't have enough to do, now I have to make my business work in a bad economic and make time for porn too.

[Navy26Yrs]

Nothing like potential free time to spark romance and make constant linear moments for rolls in the hay.

[MaximMaximus]

You said "As if I don't have enough to do..." Are you suggesting that you have it done to more often than the average bear? ;-)

[AdV2k1]

" You're going to be paying a lot less for it. "

I pay NOTHING for them now, so what they start paying me. AWESOME !

[shastaman]

RECENT STUDIES SHOW THAT PEOPLE WITH RING FINGERS LONGER THAN THEIR RING FINGERS WILL HAVE 8 TIMES MORE SEX! Probably 'cause they make 8 times the money, score 8 times as many touchdowns, run faster jump higher, probably have higher intensity and interest in reproducing and generally are willing to take the risk and ask / or pay the recquisite toll!
' been married 19 years no sex at all in 08
09 can only look up! the depression began before the recession!

[shastaman]

OOPS! that should read ring fingers longer than index fingers! forgive my poor editing
not reflective of my libido

[MaximMaximus]

And I thought it always costs some money one way or another -the dinning, wining, candies and cookies, the weekend getaways, cinema, theater, opera etc etc...lol

[fictioneer]

Dlist.com, a site for gay men, is way, way ahead of AOL. It's pretty advanced in terms of authentication, video and pics, and so what I'd say is, we've been watching it before we get there for a while in the gay community. But it is interesting! So have fun.

[omo]

Sounds awfully lonely to me. I'd prefer a rousing game of Clue with a bunch of happy (not gay, that word is forever lost to its original meaning) kids, followed by milk and cookies, to watching porn.

[thepoliticalcat]

Either you don't know what you're missing, or you don't know what you're talking about. The thought of having to spend time playing board games with a bunch of milk-moustached youngsters makes me want to burp.

[RuffNReddy]

Wow. So, it's all about porn. Great.

Funny how it starts with: if you're coupled, you'll have more sex....
that is, if all this free internet porn doesn't destroy your marriage first.

[thanos mom]

Porn only destroys marriage if both parties are not into it. Nobody can really blame porn for the disintegration of their marriage, any more than you can blame football or shopping, or the gay couple getting married down the street. Whether people want to admit it or not, there is more wrong than they are willing to admit because then, oh geez, they might actually have a portion of the blame!

[digitalprophet]

QFT.

Shared interests keep couples together. If porn is enjoyed too much by only one of the couple(or by both, separately as it were), then conflict shall arise.

And you can really substitute "porn" with any other hobby/obsession.

[DingoLily]

did you just compare porn with football and shopping? seriously?

[realitycheck7]

hogwash

[motamanx]

Porn, girls gone wild, and poker on every channel. No wonder the fundamentalist hordes believe we are the Great SatanI Perhaps they are right.
We can't get them to rock and roll by bombing the s**t out of them.

[bsseenitall]

Tell me something I don't know.

How do I get a job to write about the obvious??

[digitalprophet]

I feel you man. I know that we are playing with rhetorical questions here, but to be SO SERIOUS for a second.. Keep putting yourself out there, stay true, and have fun. One day you may just get to be that guy saying what we are all thinking AND getting paid to do so. I know I aspire to it :)

[AZ4thatone]

Bringing to mind visions of Woody Allen in Sleeper when he was passing around the orgasmatron.
One of my favorite scenes of all time! LOL

[GibsonSG]

A vibrator that records macros. Brilliant! I finally feel like we're living in the 21st century, lol

[yyz4001]

today's brand of pornography is un-healthy at best. It is exploitive, and distorts our view of sexuality - especially when viewed in the torrents not uncommon by today's internet consumer. Is this what we want for our kids ? It's OK to say - Enough - Ubiquitous porn consumption is not OK.

[GibsonSG]

You are so right. I can't even count how many porn advertisements I see on Saturday morning cartoons. Restricting adult access to material based on the argument of 'protecting children' is still unconstitutional.

[yyz4001]

Don't misrepresent the message - I'm simply saying there needs to be a positive / reasonable voice to counter the porn-on-tap proponents. Don't hide behind the constitution.

[hempster]

If it saves them from contracting HIV/AIDS. J. Elders Clintons "disgraced" SG was just before her time. Actually she was just in time but our covertly prudent president sacked her. Pun intended.

[meeneecat]

One thing that many p.or. n fanatics don't seem to get is that p.or n is not equal to s- ex. So many (mostly males) get their "training" and information about s- ex from p. or n. And it's really quite sad what ensues, precisely because p. or. n is in no way even closely representative of real s. ex.

I've watched quite a few docs and read plenty of papers on the subject...as well as watch plenty of actual videos themselves. And you frequently read about men that have lost their ability to have real s-ex because they have de-sensitized themselves to the point that they can no longer get off w/out watching videos.

It's ironic - but the people that I've talked to, whom seem to have the most real s-ex, and the most fullfillings-exual relationships, are those men that have been exposed to little or no p. or. n, or just plain don't enjoy it (i.e. they enjoy the real stuff better). So there is something to be said about the omnipresence of this stuff - i.e. is it really something that we want to be desensitizing ourselves to.

(don't worry p. or n. fanatics - I'm sure there will be plenty of folks like you coming to refute my comments, so you can happily deny whatever you like ) cheers!

[BannedInBoston]

Want to know the best place to meet women? Not bars, astrology conferences. Seventy percent of astrologers are female and of the thirty percent who are male, roughly half are gay. It's how I met my second wife....

[realitycheck7]

yes but they are wackjobs

[JillInTheBox]

Skeptics can be wackjobs, too. By the way.

[therblig]

did someone predict getting more wackjobs?

(somebody had to say it)

[jbeach]

Which means the sex is likely to be that much better.

[Telemachus]

Wackjobs, nutjobs, oddjobs, they're all good IMHO.

What we really need is a national "jobs" program.

[AtheistUS]

Astrology itself is a nonsense, so sure there should be another agenda at such conferences...

[MIMom]

I wouldn't dismiss it entirely. Sometimes it's eerily accurate.

[rf-hawaii]

Humans don't fully understand their capabilities, intuition, etc. Grey areas like Astrology could easily be manifestations of something else.

[Wilson201]

The question is... did she know you would be there?
I need to send my brother to one.

[Gib]

Who'd want to meet an astrologer? I try to avoid them.

[lisa12345]

This is so disappointing.

[rf-hawaii]

and so human.

[Lochmon]

Hopefully so.

[RainDance33]

So times are changing but not really. Still the same old thing if you ask me. Check out the picture accompanying this article. Is it a male torso with abs to die for? Of course not, more female flesh to titillate and grab the attention of the increasingly unsatisfied male. Read this article and what jumps out at you, let's scan down from the top shall we.......porn, street walkers, pole dancers, gold diggers, hussy, vibrators and of course the 'no pants dance craze' ( I don't think we're talking about guys with shirts only on the dance floor) No nothing really new here on offer. Meanwhile, boys are not taught, as girls are, that their bodies could have a disruptive effect on people around them.
They're not told that how they look could incite unwanted female attention. And here's a quote from a recent SMH article
"the fact is male bodies can have the same effect on women as female bodies can have on men. That far fewer men than women are harassed or attacked by people claiming sexual provocation is not because women aren't visually aroused, but because women have learnt that their biological responses to beauty are not an excuse to commit acts of violence or discrimination."

[Hobay]

Choose carefully your excuses to commit violence and discrimination, that's all I ask.

[southeybrown]

Nicely put. But the sexual education of women is nothing to hold up as an example of best practice. Besides teaching us how to control our "biological responses" sexual norms have not been beneficial to women as a whole. Both men and women should be taught the idea of sexual agency, just as we are taught political or social agency. Yes we have the right to be sexually assertive, but civility demands that we are sexually responsible as well.

[indypete]

As Jeff Foxworthy so succinctly put it.... Women are difficult to figure out but it's easy to read a man's mind. The only thoughts in there are "I wanna beer and I wanna see sumpin' nekkid"

[meeneecat]

Claiming that the entire male gender are idiots that can't control themselves is part of the problem. Not all men are baseless idiots without brains. Men need to learn personal responsibility just like anyone else. Stupidity is not an excuse.

[kotipup]

I noticed some of the same things as you. Women are inevitably portrayed as the objects of desire, men the pursuers. I don't know if it's biological or cultural, but at least stereotypically the male ego seems tied to how many women he can bed, how attractive those women are, and whether or not he is able to satisfy them physically, without regard to emotional impact. I know that it's oversimplified, but so much of our culture does oversimplify the relationship between women and men.

[Stud99]

Call girls, online dating? Does this author ever leave his house?